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    When Valmond Came to Pontiac: The Story of a Lost Napoleon. Volume 2.
    When Valmond Came to Pontiac: The Story of a Lost Napoleon. Volume 2.
    When Valmond Came to Pontiac: The Story of a Lost Napoleon. Volume 2.
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    When Valmond Came to Pontiac: The Story of a Lost Napoleon. Volume 2.

    By Gilbert Parker

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 26, 2013
    When Valmond Came to Pontiac: The Story of a Lost Napoleon. Volume 2.
    Author

    Gilbert Parker

    Gilbert Parker (1862–1932), also credited as Sir Horatio Gilbert George Parker, 1st Baronet, was a Canadian novelist and British politician. His initial career was in education, working in various schools as a teacher and lecturer. He then traveled abroad to Australia where he became an editor at the Sydney Morning Herald. He expanded his writing to include long-form works such as romance fiction. Some of his most notable titles include Pierre and his People (1892), The Seats of the Mighty and The Battle of the Strong.

    Read more from Gilbert Parker

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      When Valmond Came to Pontiac - Gilbert Parker

      The Project Gutenberg EBook Valmond Came to Pontiac, v2, by G. Parker #30 in our series by Gilbert Parker

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      Title: When Valmond Came to Pontiac, Volume 2.

      Author: Gilbert Parker

      Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6203] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on September 23, 2002]

      Edition: 10

      Language: English

      *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VALMOND TO PONTIAC, V2, BY PARKER ***

      This eBook was produced by David Widger

      [NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an entire meal of them. D.W.]

      WHEN VALMOND CAME TO PONTIAC

      The Story of a Lost Napoleon

      By Gilbert Parker

      Volume 2.

      CHAPTER VI

      Prince or plebeian, Valmond played his part with equal aplomb at the simple home of Elise Malboir and at the Manoir Hilaire, where Madame Chalice received him. His dress had nothing of the bizarre on this occasion. He was in black-long coat, silk stockings, the collar of his waistcoat faced with white, his neckerchief white and full, his enamelled shoes adorned with silver buckles. His present repose and decorum contrasted strangely with the fanciful display at his first introduction. Madame Chalice approved instantly, for though the costume was, in itself, an affectation, previous to the time by a generation, it was in the picture, was sedately refined. She welcomed him in the salon where many another distinguished man had been entertained—from Frontenac, and Vaudreuil, down to Sir Guy Carleton. The Manor had belonged to her husband's people seventy-five years before, and though, as a banker in New York, Monsieur Chalice had become an American of the Americans, at her request he had bought back from a kinsman the old place, unchanged, furniture and all. Bringing the antique plate, china, and bric-a-brac, made in France when Henri Quatre was king, she fared away to Quebec, set the rude mansion in order, and was happy for a whole summer, as was her husband, the best of fishermen and sportsmen. The Manor House stood on a knoll, behind which, steppe on steppe, climbed the hills, till they ended in Dalgrothe Mountain. Beyond the mountain were unexplored regions, hill and valley floating into hill and valley, lost in a miasmic haze, ruddy, silent, untenanted, save, mayhap, by the strange people known as the Little Good Folk of the Scarlet Hills.

      The house had been built in the seventeenth century, and the walls were very thick, to keep out both cold and attack. Beneath the high-pointed roof were big dormer windows, and huge chimneys flanked each side of the house. The great roof gave a sense of crouching or hovering, for warmth or in menace. As Valmond entered the garden, Madame Chalice was leaning over the lower half of the entrance door, which opened latitudinally, and was hung on large iron hinges of quaint design, made by some seventeenth- century forgeron. Behind her deepened hospitably the spacious hall, studded and heavy beamed, with its unpainted pine ceiling toned to a good brown by smoke and time. Caribou and moose antlers hung along the wall, with arquebuses, powder-horns, big shot-bags, swords, and even pieces of armour, such as Cartier brought with him from St. Malo.

      Madame Chalice looked out of this ancient avenue, a contrast, yet a harmony; for, though her dress was modern, her person had a rare touch of the archaic, and fitted into the picture like a piece of beautiful porcelain, coloured long before the art of making fadeless colours was lost.

      There was an amused, meditative smiling at her lips, a kind of wonder, the tender flush of a new experience. She turned, and, stepping softly into the salon, seated herself near the immense chimney, in a heavily carved chair, her feet lost in rich furs on the polished floor. A quaint table at her hand was dotted with rare old books and miniatures, and behind her ticked an ancient clock in a tall mahogany case.

      Valmond came forward, hat in hand, and raised to his lips the fingers she gave him. He did it with the vagueness of one in a dream, she thought, and she neither understood nor relished his uncomplimentary abstraction; so she straightway determined to give him some troublesome moments.

      I have waited to drink my coffee with you, she said, motioning him to a seat; and you may smoke a cigarette, if you wish.

      Her eyes wandered over his costume with critical satisfaction.

      He waved his hand slightly, declining the permission, and looked at her with an intent seriousness, which took no account of the immediate charm of her presence.

      I'd like to ask you a question, he said, without preamble. She was amused, interested. Here was an unusual man, who ignored the conventional preliminary nothings, beating down the grass before the play, as it were.

      I was never good at catechism, she answered. But I will be as hospitable as I can.

      I've felt, he said, that you can—can see through things; that you can balance them, that you get at all sides, and—

      She had been reading Napoleon's letters this very afternoon.

      Full squared? she interrupted quizzically.

      As the Great Emperor said, he answered. "A woman sees farther than a man, and if she has judgment as well, she is the

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